Scoping Review of Bidirectional Intimate Partner Violence Using Dyadic Data

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is often considered a unidirectional phenomenon even though historical debate has highlighted the prevalence of bidirectional IPV, where both partners in a couple use and experience IPV. Dyadic data, in which both partners report on IPV, is important because agreement in partner reports of IPV is low. This scoping review aimed to identify rates of bidirectional IPV and examined how different methods of reporting bidirectional IPV impacted rates in studies using dyadic data. Systematic database searches were conducted, and studies were reviewed for the following inclusion criteria: (a) adults over the age of 18; (b) reported rates of bidirectional IPV or provided data that would allow for calculation of bidirectional IPV in the sample; (c) used dyadic data; (d) was published in a peer-reviewed journal; and (e) a United States sample. Rates of bidirectional IPV varied significantly across the 34 studies with rates ranging from 10.0% to 96.6% (median = 35.0%). There was significant variability across studies in instrumentation, definition of bidirectional IPV, and type of sample, making cross-study comparison difficult. Most studies reported the presence of bidirectional IPV if either partner reported IPV use (i.e., perpetration) or experience (i.e., victimization), and if partners disagreed, the higher or positive score was used. Bidirectional IPV rates derived from this method ranged from 10% to 80% which may be an overrepresentation of bidirectional IPV. Further research is needed to inform the ideal method for defining bidirectional IPV, especially when partners do not agree in their reports of IPV.